Ease of changing D&D god for main character

Remove all ads!

Something I didn't realize-or forgot-was how easy it was to change which D&D god your protagonist character followed during the game.

Certain classes don't require following any particular set of D&D gods beyond the racial restrictions for the game-no matter what alignment.

So a drow mage could start the game as a lawful good follower of Lolth (a chaotic evil drow god in D&D) and then add a new class like druid or paladin.

When your main character applies the level up that gives him or her a new class the main character changes which D&D god or goddess he or she follows according to restrictions for current alignment and new class (though probably still with race restrictions).

Anyway, I hadn't realized this or forgot it because I don't usually start a character intending to change his or her alignment (though I can with gameplay choices). But starting characters with alignments that don't really match their initial D&D gods makes it possible to change that faster.

 

Is your game patched? I could have sworn it was not possible to select a deity that had an alignment conflict with the character in version 1.023.

In any case, changing deities should not be so easy by AD&D and Forgotten Realms rules in P&P. There should be consequences.

 

I checked it is version 1.23.

Anyway, I don't know about most classes in P&P but there are consequences for clerics. Thinking back to 2nd edition if a cleric was open about switching he lost a level or 2. By open I mean yelling his or her change from a mountain top.

There was a penalty but it was direct if the cleric was.

If a cleric tried to do something sneaky like change beliefs secretly and then assassinate an important member of the clergy or destroy an important temple there was a special kind of punishment above and beyond for that.

But, and this is going back to one of the expansions for 2nd Edition D&D, it was about how open a cleric was about changing his or her beliefs. If done honestly then take the penalty and move on.

Now keep in mind that the game is much more specific about alignment requirements for clerics, rangers, and the like than other followers-like wizards or fighters.

I guess the point is that if a character receives some sort of religious bonus then the game makes sure that alignment is close enough for the church or religion that character is a part of.

Now one of the things I give NWN2:OC credit for is for having a bunch of decisions that impact your alignment to a small extent-this gives a character leeway for the occasional exception but if he or she acts against the original alignment continually then it may change.

So with alignment a character can reform, fall, or generally stay on his or her original path.

So if a cleric changes in game I'm not sure if there is a penalty like the normal P&P version but it will usually take longer as the character changes over time-I don't think it can be done as easily like I did a wizard (or likely a fighter), at the beginning of the campaign in the game.



**Minor Spoiler Warning for the following**

If the main character changes in MotB I wonder if Myrkul makes a comment about it like he does with Kaelyn.

I've heard that in the MotB part of the game Kaelyn makes a remark if the main character follows Ilmater and Kelemvor does the same with ditto for himself.

So I'm curious about (haven't seen) those dialogues.

 

Maybe they changed it in 3rd edition, I too am more familiar with 2nd edition.

 

There are no hard rules for changing deities in 3.X, just like there are no hard rules for changing alignments. There are splat books providing methods for GMs to approach these matters, but these are very polarizing issues, so they're not part of the core system.

A lot of players feel that such things are purely the domain of character design and thus entirely within their purview. So if you say you follow one god, you follow that god. If you say you're one alignment, then you're that alignment. In the same way that you could say that your character has a short fuse and it's not really up for debate.

On the other side, you have players who believe that the way you roleplay a character is what their character traits should reflect. So if you go on a mindless murder spree, you don't get to call yourself "Good". If you want to change your faith, the deities might have something to say about it. If you play your character as aloof, then that's what he is.

Ultimately, NwN2 is a computer game, so what goes in PnP is largely irrelevant. There's no such thing as soft rules.